October 2015

I realize that “vegetarian” and “Cuban black bean soup” might be terms that don’t historically accompany one another, but I wanted to try to make a vegetarian black bean soup that could still be as flavorful as those that have been cooked all day with a ham hock, and which boasted flavors often found in Cuban black bean soup, such as cumin. In keeping with the spirit of minimalism, this is also a truly easy recipe, the kind of thing…

Last year, my Brazilian friend Nathalia gave me an amazing candy. It was a bit like fudge, but creamier, more buttery, and less chocolate-y, coated with little chocolate sprinkles. They were breathtaking, and different. More recently, brigadeiros somehow re-entered my consciousness through the Internet, through articles referring to them and one of my favorite food bloggers reposting an older recipe on Facebook. But her recipe didn’t look exactly like the taste I’d remembered: it didn’t have chocolate in it, and…

I’m not even going to pretend this recipe for brown sugar chocolate chip bars is healthy, but it is minimalist– these bars take less than twenty minutes to put together and pop in the oven. How long it takes you to eat them is another issue – I could barely make these last long enough to take a photo of them, and only this one sad bar was left. This is the kind of recipe where you’ll find yourself wanting…